NIA files charge sheet against ISIS recruit Arif Majeed

Mumbai, May 20: The National Investigation Agency o Wednesday filed its charge sheet against arrested ISIS 'recruit' Arif Majeed in a special court here.

"We have filed a charge sheet in the special NIA court against Majeed," said an NIA official. The 8,000-page charge sheet running into seven volumes contains the statements of witnesses, his conversation in the chat rooms and his mobile phone records, the official added.

In January this year, a local court had allowed NIA to seek details of conversations and chats carried out by the alleged ISIS 'recruit' through telecommunication apps Skype and Tango headquartered in Luxembourg and California, USA respectively.

The 23-year-old youth from Kalyan in neighbouring Thane landed in Mumbai on November 28 last year after a visit to Iraq, following which he was detained and subsequently arrested.

A case under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Section 125 of IPC which deals with offence of `waging war against any Asiatic country which has friendly ties with India' had been registered against ISIS,

Arif Majeed is currently in judicial custody

Majeed and three of his friends, all engineering students. According to police, Majeed and his friends flew to Baghdad on May 23 last year as part of a group of 22 pilgrims to visit religious shrines in Iraq.

Upon returning to India, other pilgrims told police that Majeed, Fahad, Aman and Shaheen Tanki had left for Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad.

In August, Tanki called up Majeed's family and told them that their son had become a 'martyr' while fighting for ISIS.

However, later Majeed's father Ejaz Majeed reportedly told NIA that his son had fled from ISIS-controlled areas to Turkey after fighting for the militant group for nearly three months and he now wanted to return to India.

Majeed is now in judicial custody here while the other three are still missing.

PTI